by Jonathan Benson
staff writer
July 24, 2013
from
NaturalNews Website
The world's most evil corporation,
Monsanto, has announced it will
cease trying to introduce any new genetically-modified (GM) crops
into Europe following years of widespread public opposition to the
controversial and untested technology.
Instead, the multinational biotechnology
behemoth will re-focus its efforts on controlling the conventional
seed market in the European Union (EU), an outlandish move that
proves the seed giant is still determined, in one way or another, to
dominate global agriculture.
Monsanto's President and Managing Director for Europe, Jose
Manuel Madero, recently told Reuters in a phone interview that
his company will be withdrawing all existing approval requests for
new GMOs in Europe within the next few months.
These include five pending approval
requests for at least one new variety of GM corn (maize), as well as
GM soybeans and GM sugar beets. As of this writing, there is only
one GM crop, Monsanto's MON810 maize, currently approved for
cultivation anywhere in Europe.
No matter how hard Monsanto and various others in the biotechnology
industry have tried in years past to force GMOs on Europe, the
result has almost always been the same: failure.
The people of Europe have repeatedly
expressed loudly and clearly that they do not want to eat GMOs, and
the European Commission (EC) has tended to align its approval
process for GMOs with this public sentiment in mind.
Thus, GMOs continue to remain largely
absent from the European market, with the exception of widely-used
animal feed.
"(The requests) have been going
nowhere fast for several years," says Brandon Mitchener, a
Monsanto spokesman, about the company's failed efforts to force
GMOs on Europe.
"There's no end in sight."
Monsanto
"If we can't force Europeans to accept GMOs, we
will instead take over their conventional crops"
This is good news for Europeans, of course, who will finally have
the opportunity to rest a little easier as far as the integrity of
their food supply is concerned - this is with the exception of GM
animal feed, of course, which is currently imported into the country
from places like the U.S. and South America at a rate of more than
30 million metric tons yearly, according to Reuters.
But what Europeans will now have to worry about, sadly, is
Monsanto's new pursuit of controlling their conventional crops.
As we have been reporting on recently,
Monsanto has been taking advantage of a little-known loophole in
European patent law that allows the company to literally draw
patents on natural crops like broccoli and green beans.
You can read more about this
here below.
"In the coming weeks, around a dozen
new patents will be granted (to Monsanto), covering species such
as broccoli, onions, melons, lettuce and cucumber," explains the
food freedom watchdog coalition No Patents on Seeds! about
Monsanto's new business approach.
"Monsanto and Syngenta already own
more than 50 percent of seed varieties of tomato, paprika and
cauliflower registered in the EU."
In other words, since it could not have
its way with GMOs in Europe, Monsanto simply turned to the earth's
natural bounty and gradually claimed it as its own - and the
European Patent Office (EPO) continues to facilitate this
takeover of the natural food supply in Europe, mostly because the
European people remain in the dark about what is actually happening
to their agricultural system.
You can help fight Monsanto's takeover of the European food supply
by signing the No Patents on Seeds! online
petition.
Sources
European Patent Office grants Monsanto patent
on...
Natural Broccoli Seeds, Florets
by Ethan A. Huff
staff writer
July 01, 2013
from
NaturalNews Website
Monsanto's efforts to usher
genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) into the European Union (EU)
have been largely stagnant in recent years, so the multinational
corporation and others in the industry are taking a new and more
evil approach to gain more market control.
According to a recent announcement put
forth by the human rights advocacy group No Patents on Seeds!, the
European Patent Office (EPO) is now granting biotechnology companies
patents on all-natural crops such as broccoli, which was recently
handed over as private property to Monsanto.
Exploiting an egregious loophole in European patent law, Monsanto
and others have been feverishly filing for patents on all sorts of
natural crops, presumably in response to widespread resistance by
members of the European public to its GMO offerings.
Most recently, EPO granted Monsanto a
patent on conventionally-bred broccoli, which includes not only
broccoli seeds but also the "severed broccoli head" and the
"plurality of broccoli plants... grown in a field of broccoli" - in
other words, broccoli in all of its natural forms.
Though vehemently opposed by the European Parliament, EPO's decision
to legitimize private ownership of nature - in this case broccoli -
is apparently becoming the norm throughout Europe. Since the
biotechnology industry has failed at replacing nature with its own "Frankencrops"
throughout Europe, it has set its sights on seizing ownership of
nature itself by claiming patents on it.
And unless the people step up to
forcibly stop this, using whatever means necessary, then these
crimes against humanity will only continue.
"We are calling for broad support of
our opposition against the patent on 'severed broccoli'," said
Christoph Then from the group No Patents on Seeds! recently.
No Patents on Seeds! has formed a
petition in opposition to patents on natural crops that recently
topped two million signatures, and the group is joined by a cohort
of other environmental advocacy and health freedom groups throughout
Europe in its efforts.
"We intend to send a clear signal
that we will not let our food be monopolized."
You can access
this petition here.
Monsanto also pushing
for ownership of life in America as well
No Patents on Seeds!
is joined by,
-
Bionext (Netherlands)
-
The Berne Declaration
(Switzerland)
-
GeneWatch (UK)
-
Greenpeace (Germany)
-
Misereor (Germany)
-
Development Fund (Norway)
-
No Patents on Life (Germany)
-
Rete Semi Rurali (Italy)
-
Reseau Semences Paysannes
(France)
-
Swissaid (Switzerland),
...in calling on European politicians to
assume control over EPO for the purpose of amending the patent
loophole.
"All the organizations involved are
also making demands on European politicians," explains No
Patents on Seeds!.
"They are urging them to take over
control of the EPO in order to change the interpretation of the
current patent law through the Administrative Council of the EPO,
which is the assembly of the Member States."
The group Avaaz.org has also created its
own petition to stop Monsanto from patenting natural organisms in
Europe, which you can
sign here.
Back in the U.S., Monsanto is busy pushing for similar patents on
the elements of life. As reported by the Los Angeles Times (LAT),
Monsanto will soon try to convince the Supreme Court to allow it to
patent future generations of seeds that naturally reproduce from GM
strains.
If the company gets its way, a new
precedent will be set in the U.S. for corporations to assume patent
control over natural life forms.
"The case is a remarkable reflection
on recent fundamental changes in farming. In the 200-plus years
since the founding of this country, and for millenniums before
that, seeds have been part of the public domain - available for
farmers to exchange, save, modify through plant breeding and
replant," explains the NYT.
"But today this history of seeds is
seemingly forgotten in light of a patent system that, since the
mid-1980s, has allowed corporations to own products of life."
Sources
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